McCain's Management Style
Our best insights into how a prospective President might run the government can be gleaned from how he runs his campaign.
Senator John McCain’s campaigns have long been defined by internal squabbling and power plays, zigzagging lines of command and a penchant by the candidate for consulting with former advisers without alerting current ones, always a recipe for disquiet.
Mr. McCain is uncomfortable firing people or banishing them entirely. His orbit remains filled with people who have been demoted without being told they are being demoted, like Mr. Davis, who continues to hold the title of campaign manager even as Mr. Schmidt manages the campaign.
Here is a guy whose own personal finances seem to be in disarray and who is having a very hard time convincing his battling economists that he really means to balance the budget by 2013.
Mr. McCain has promised once again to balance the budget by the end of his first term in 2013, his advisers said Monday. They were reverting to an earlier pledge that Mr. McCain abandoned in April, when he proposed a series of costly tax cuts and, citing the ailing economy, said that it might take two terms to balance the budget.
This is not exactly the decisive leader his ads portray him to be. If he can’t even resolve disputes between his own staff, how will he ever be able to bring the country together? I have a feeling that’s why some important fiscal conservatives like Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Sullivan have decided to support Obama.
I’m with you, but there are plenty of criticisms that can be levelled at the management style of Bill Clinton, King George I, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, and that’s about as far back as I remember with any detail.
Campaigns and administrations are always chaos, and a good bit of the chaos is always caused by the sloppy, arrogant personalities we get in the people our overlords present to us as candidates.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on why McCain’s style in particular is worse than any of the others I listed.
I’m with you, but there are plenty of criticisms that can be levelled at the management style of Bill Clinton, King George I, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, and that’s about as far back as I remember with any detail.
Campaigns and administrations are always chaos, and a good bit of the chaos is always caused by the sloppy, arrogant personalities we get in the people our overlords present to us as candidates.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on why McCain’s style in particular is worse than any of the others I listed.
@Dan
I see a bit of “tuo quoque” there. The only relevant comparison extrapolating prospective presidential management potential capability from current campaign management evidence would be that of McCain’s vs Obama’s, I would think.
Not even close.
@Dan
I see a bit of “tuo quoque” there. The only relevant comparison extrapolating prospective presidential management potential capability from current campaign management evidence would be that of McCain’s vs Obama’s, I would think.
Not even close.
Dan,
Matters of strength and weakness may all be relative. What’s absolute is the ability of opposing campaigns to turn weakness into liability (and for real electoral jujutsu, the ability to change strength into liability as well.)
Given the post-Wright speed with which Obama now handles controversial figures in his own campaign (see Jim Johnson) it seems clear that he’s well aware of the liabilities that soft-pedaling can bring, and has become fully aware of the ways this tendency can be exploited by others. After shoring up his own defenses first, Obama now seems well positioned to play offense.
It appears this threat hasn’t even registered with the McCain folks. If the way Mr. Davis was ushered out is any indication, they’ve not even begun to adapt.
And if they keep moving at this rate, they won’t figure it out until the post mortem.
Dan,
Matters of strength and weakness may all be relative. What’s absolute is the ability of opposing campaigns to turn weakness into liability (and for real electoral jujutsu, the ability to change strength into liability as well.)
Given the post-Wright speed with which Obama now handles controversial figures in his own campaign (see Jim Johnson) it seems clear that he’s well aware of the liabilities that soft-pedaling can bring, and has become fully aware of the ways this tendency can be exploited by others. After shoring up his own defenses first, Obama now seems well positioned to play offense.
It appears this threat hasn’t even registered with the McCain folks. If the way Mr. Davis was ushered out is any indication, they’ve not even begun to adapt.
And if they keep moving at this rate, they won’t figure it out until the post mortem.
Dems who want to win need to accept that the Republicans have shown time and again how to do it. It’s never been pretty, but historically effective.
Cover your base in the primaries, move to the center in the real campaign, and control your opponent’s brand/image more than his/her campaign does.
Live with it.
Dems who want to win need to accept that the Republicans have shown time and again how to do it. It’s never been pretty, but historically effective.
Cover your base in the primaries, move to the center in the real campaign, and control your opponent’s brand/image more than his/her campaign does.
Live with it.
I haven’t quite decided to support Obama yet. The only thing I am clear about is that the Party of George W. Bush must be defeated. In the end, that may force me to vote for Obama. But I am also weighing the option of voting for Bob Barr on the grounds that Obama is probably going to win without my vote and a solid vote for Barr will send a better message to the Party of George W. Bush than a big victory by Obama.
I haven’t quite decided to support Obama yet. The only thing I am clear about is that the Party of George W. Bush must be defeated. In the end, that may force me to vote for Obama. But I am also weighing the option of voting for Bob Barr on the grounds that Obama is probably going to win without my vote and a solid vote for Barr will send a better message to the Party of George W. Bush than a big victory by Obama.